The present invention relates to an electronic discussion system, and particularly to an electronic discussion system for exchanging information among a plurality of users through a network.
Heretofore, as an electronic discussion system using a network, there is a known electronic discussion system of the electronic bulletin board type, comprising a server machine including a function to accept requests for permission to present opinions (or messages) and a function to give permission to read opinions (or messages), and a client machine for accessing the server machine to perform opinion editing and writing processes. Information exchange in the electronic discussion system as described is achieved by storing information of all opinions in the server machine serving as a bulletin board.
As a system for sharing documents on the network, the xe2x80x9cReference System of Documents Scattered in the Networkxe2x80x9d revealed in JP-A-03-152641 is known by which a plurality of users refer to documents on the network.
In the electronic discussion system of the electronic bulletin board type according the prior art mentioned above, the server machine includes both the function to accept opinions (or messages) and the function to give permission to read opinions (or messages), for which reason, when many users participate in a discussion at the same point in time, the server machine is accessed concurrently by a number of client machines. Therefore, the processing load on the server machine is so heavy that the apparent processing performance of the system that is felt by the users trying to access it decreases greatly, which has been a problem.
In the prior art, the electronic discussion system is arranged such that, basically, only one server machine is used to record and manage all opinions (or messages) received, so that the load on the storage capacity in the server machine increases or decreases in proportion to the total amount of received opinion information. Another problem with the prior art is that as the total amount of received opinion information increases, the load on the storage capacity in the server machine increases. Accordingly, in a majority of the electronic discussion systems currently in use, this problem is avoided, as a rule, by limiting the kinds of opinion information to be recorded and managed to text data which imposes a relatively lesser load on the storage capacity.
The present inventors conducted the study from a standpoint of a user interested in discussions on many kinds of topics. Such a user makes access to the server machine charged with entry and management of opinions in various kinds of discussions at least once during a specific period of time to check to see if there is any opinion deserving attention. However, all unread opinions obtained by accessing the server machine are rarely objects of interest, and if no such opinion has been recorded, a problem is that accesses that have been made end up being wasteful.
With the foregoing in mind, the present invention has been made by the present inventors.
Therefore, a first object of the present invention is to provide an electronic discussion system in which even if requests to accept opinions (or messages) or grant permission to read opinions (or messages) concurrently come from a number of client machines, the processing load on the server machine will not become too large.
A second object of the present invention is to provide an electronic discussion system in which even if the total amount of received opinion information increases, the load on the storage capacity of a specific server machine is prevented from becoming too large.
A third object of the present invention is to provide an electronic discussion system which obviates the need to access the server machine only to check the contents of opinions.
To achieve the first and second objects mentioned above, the electronic discussion system according to the present invention includes servers for writing and managing opinion information, and clients for accessing the servers through a network, recording the opinion information in said servers, and referring to the opinion information which has already been recorded and which is being managed, wherein the servers comprise at least one storage server for holding detailed contents of various pieces of opinion information; and at least one discussion server for holding opinion indexes showing the storage locations of opinion contents of various pieces of opinion information corresponding to the opinion indexes, and wherein the clients comprise an opinion (or message) writing client for transferring and writing an opinion index made from newly received opinion information and the content of the newly received opinion itself into the discussion server and the storage server, respectively and a reading client for referring to the opinion indexes and the contents of the opinions which were recorded respectively in the discussion server and the storage server and which are being managed.
In the present invention, the discussion server holds many kinds of opinion list files classified by a topic, so that any of the opinion indexes can be selected as the object to express one""s opinion about or the reading object. The reading client machine, responding to a specified reading instruction, searches the discussion server for the opinion indexes in the list files, which correspond to a specific topic as the reading object, and displays those opinion indexes. The reading client also and searches the storage server for an opinion content corresponding to a specific opinion index selected from the displayed opinion indexes and displays that opinion.
In the method described above, a part of the process related to expressing an opinion to a discussion and reading the contents of a discussion is executed by a client machine making the request to execute the process. Also, even if a number of client machines concurrently send requests for a process to express or read an opinion, the processing load will not become too heavy on a specific server machine. Moreover, a plurality of server machines (at least one discussion server and one storage server) are provided so that one piece of information about an opinion is divided into an opinion index and an opinion content when it is stored, and therefore even if the total amount of received opinion information increases, the load on the storage capacity on a specific server machine will not become too large.
To achieve the third object, in the present invention, the reading client machine is either a participating discussion reading client machine, for which at least one of the topics of discussion has been specified as a steady reading object, or a non-participating discussion reading client machine without any specified steady topic for reading. The discussion server machine holds a discussion participants list including information about the discussion topics specified as the steady reading objects by the participating discussion reading client machines, additionally records the opinion indexes sent from the opinion writing client machine onto the related opinion list file, and allots, according to the discussion participants list, the opinion indexes to all of the participated discussion reading client machines, for which topics have been specified as steady reading objects. Further, in the present invention, a user division server holding multiple kinds of list files of allotted opinion indexes sent from the discussion server and classified by the topics is provided for each group of participating discussion reading client machines. Each group includes at least one participating discussion reading client machine. The participating discussion reading client machine, according to a specified reading instruction, searches for the opinion indexes in the allotted opinion list file from the corresponding user division server, and displays the opinion indexes, and searches for an opinion content corresponding to a specific opinion index selected from the displayed opinion indexes, and displays the opinion.
Under the above arrangement, when any opinion is presented to a discussion in which a certain user is participating, since the opinion index of the received opinion is automatically allotted to the client machine that user is using or to the user division server to which the user belongs, it is not necessary for the user to check if there is any opinion which is of interest by making access to the discussion servers or the storage servers which are often located in relatively remote places.